SERGEANT BIGGLESWORTH C.I.D.

by Captain W. E. Johns

XIV. BACK TO THE TRAIL (Pages 134 - 144)

The dramatic scene is interrupted by the arrival of Bertie. "Who is this man who wears a window in his face? Is he your friend, or an enemy?" asks the sheikh. Bertie is shortly joined by Collingwood and Sergeant Mahmud and his men. The Arabs are heavily outnumbered and they drift off into the desert again whilst the mine clearance begins. Biggles and Ginger fly to Khartoum in the Spur whilst Collingwood brings back Algy and Bertie, leaving the men to clear the mines and be collected in a few days. Biggles is pleased to see his old friend Wilks, as is Algy who knows him well from the First World War and Ginger who meet him in a previous adventure (Biggles Flies North). Biggles asks Wilks about a place called "Sanseviera" and discovers that sanseviera is a plant, a tall, spiny bush, rather like a cactus. "There's a whole forest of it, hundreds of square miles, just over the frontier in Abyssinia". Biggles realises that that is where Gontermann and Co. are based. The Italians had been fighting in Abyssinia and Scaroni was a supply officer. Biggles decides to make some recognisance flights over the area using a Tiger Moth painted in the colours of an Abyssinian plane, as the Abyssinian air force use Tiger Moths. Cables are sent to Raymond to explain the current position and Biggles gets some sleep.